Double Fine still keen to acquire lost THQ rights

Double Fine boss Tim Schafer has said the developer wants to re-acquire the distribution rights for Costume Quest and Stacking - for emotional reasons, not financial ones.

Speaking to Polygon, Schafer confirmed that Double Fine tried to buy the rights to both games during THQ's auction process - where it lost out to Nordic Games.

"It's not, like, a lot of money; it's mostly for us to just tidy up things. And also an emotional attachment - more of a mission of Double Fine to own everything that we make," he said.

"It's, like, this loose end that kind of bothers me that we'd like to tie up."

Schafer declined comment when whether Double Fine is currently in talks with Nordic Games to get the rights, and commented that the indie is at a disadvantage in any discussion of the topic.

"It's frustrating when something's really valuable to you for emotional reasons, and not that valuable to anyone else," he said.

"Because they can still say, 'Well, how much do you want it for?' and it's, like, 'Aw, you know this isn't valuable to you.' It's valuable to me, but not for business reasons, in a sense."

Double Fine owns the IP for both games, so it can go ahead and build on either property should it so choose; Nordic Games merely collects on any proceeds the games generate through specific - but not all - distribution channels.